Typical Response
by Quack Quack 88
Summary: With only three days until Lily Evans has to take her Ordinary Wizarding Levels, she finds herself a total wreck, crying in all areas of the school and snapping at nearly innocent bystanders, but that's typical of all the fifth years.


Here's another one shot by me, inspired by the horror every student faces at least once, most often twice, a year: exams. I'm not crazy about the title, so that could always change.  
  
With only three days until Lily Evans has to take her Ordinary Wizarding Levels, she finds herself a total wreck, crying in all areas of the school and snapping at nearly innocent bystanders, but that's typical of all the fifth years.   
  
I own nothing and that's fine by me.  
  
This is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to cope with the prospect of exams--final, mid-year or minor.  
  
Typical Response  
  
  
  
"Er, Potter?"   
  
"Hmm," James looked up from the Herbology chart he had be studying to see a very pretty redhead standing uncertainly across the table.  
  
"You wouldn't happen to have potions notes from last month would you?" He ran an ink-smudged hand through his hair as she smiled at him imploringly.   
  
"Lemme check." He sifted through the mess of parchment and text books on his desk, the noise of which drew the attention of Madam Pince. She gave Lily a venomous glare and forcefully pointed to a sign that read "QUIET."  
  
She mouthed a reproachful "sorry" to the librarian before dropping her bag next to James' table and sliding into an unoccupied seat.  
  
"You don't mind, do you?"  
  
"What?" he asked, looking up, "oh...no...not at all." He stared blankly at her for a few moments. Lily shifted in her seat, wishing he's stop looking at her. She was starting to wonder if she'd grown a second nose or if James was becoming comatose.   
  
She cleared her throat, which apparently brought the boy back to his senses and inspired a pink tinge to crawl up the back of his neck.  
  
"Any luck?" she asked, hoping to get the notes from James as soon as possible and get back to her own table.   
  
"I must've lent mine to Peter...I hope. I've got Sirius's though. You can borrow them, if that helps." He said notes out to her, which she suspected had more doodles than actual information. "He won't mind, honest," he added misreading her hesitation.   
  
"Alright, it is okay if I sit with you while I use them? Duplicating them won't help much and it'd save me time if I didn't have to find you later on." Lily didn't know why she felt she needed to explain herself, perhaps as a precaution so that Potter wouldn't get any wrong ideas.   
  
"Yeah, sure."  
  
Silence fell between the two as Lily attempted to decipher Sirius Black's horrendous penmanship and James reaffirmed his competency in Herbology. James was just beginning to test himself on the proper handling of flesh-eating shrubs when a little sniffle broke his concentration.   
  
Eager to impress the girl, James hastily transfigured a loose shred of parchment into a handkerchief. But she was oblivious to his splendid bit of magic. A bit annoyed, he decided to offer it to her anyway and perhaps escort her to the hospital wing so Madame Pomfrey could alleviate her runny nose.   
  
It took him a minute that Lily didn't have a case of hay fever.  
  
"Are you crying Evans?" he asked incredulously.   
  
"No," she mumbled rubbing her eyes.  
  
"What's wrong? What happened?" James was utterly confused. He'd heard that some girls were emotional basket cases, but this was absurd.  
  
"I-I can't r-read his h–h-handwriting," she stammered between sobs.  
  
He couldn't recall a time when he felt more awkward, and he had been witness to the time his mother met Mrs. Black. "Er–don't cry, Evans. Just let me see the page. I can probably tell you what it says."  
  
"No," she sobbed. "You don't understand. I'm going to f-f-fail. They're going to say that they made a mistake...that I'm not really a witch. They'll make me live with Muggles."  
  
"No, Evans, it's alright," he said, dragging his chair next to hers. "See? Right here it says 'Step one: Add dragon's blood to one cup powdered toad liver.'" Lily was inconsolable, however and continued sobbing.  
  
"Shhh," he soothed, seeing Madam Pince's murderous stare.   
  
"Dumbledore's gonna take away my prefect badge because I'm too stupid."  
  
He tried patting her back, but made sure to do it lightly, lest he further upset her. "You're not stupid. You got top marks on your Charms exam last year, remember?"  
  
"That was last year," she wailed, burying her face in his shoulder. "This year is different. I just can't do it!"  
  
James shook his head, as if trying to shake off the surprise that had just overwhelmed him. Apparently, Lily Evans had cracked. James thought for a moment about owling his uncle at St. Mungo's to see if Evans should be brought there.   
  
  
  
Maybe someone had used Polyjuice potion on her, because she certainly wasn't acting like herself. Usually she shrugged him of whenever he tried to talk to her, but now she was crying onto his shoulder. Normally she was more composed than this.   
  
She really was smart, too, so he had no idea what she was going on about. Not to mention beautiful, kind and a million other things...  
  
He didn't know what she was playing at, saying she was no good at magic. If she didn't study at all for her OWLS she couldn't do any worse than an A in any subject, most likely, even though she'd missed two weeks of class last month.   
  
Unbeknownst to James, the librarian had crept up behind him. "Out!" she hissed in her most vicious whisper. He smiled apologetically at her as Lily snapped to attention. With a wave of his wand he packed the materials on the table into their respective bags, which he and Lily picked up as they exited the library.   
  
Once they had reached the corridor, Lily turned to him, her face a brilliant crimson to mask her puffy eyes.   
  
"Look Potter, I'm really sorry about that. I'm a bit of a wreak as of late...You know, with stress and everything."  
  
"'S'alright, Evans. If you need help with anything, I could help you out." An empty classroom. With Evans in it. God, he hoped she'd say yes.  
  
Either Lily could read minds or interpreted James' offer as his way of saying that he was a better wizard than her, because she looked affronted by it. She narrowed her eyes.  
  
"It's not the material, Potter. It's the stress."  
  
Taken aback by her sudden mood swing, James blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. "This doesn't have anything to do with Burton dumping you, does it?"  
  
Lily could have smacked him.   
  
James could have smacked himself for her.  
  
Instead, Lily threw her hands up in the air. "Arggguh!" she cried. "I don't have time for this. I need to study."  
  
With that she turned on her heal and stormed off towards Gryffindor Tower.   
  
Lily didn't know who to be angrier with, herself or James. It was easier to be furious with James, so she settled for that.  
  
It wasn't her fault Eddie was too immature to consider carrying their relationship past Hogwarts. Well, she'd still be in Hogwarts for two more years and he'd be working for Gringotts. Still, though, they could have seen each other on Hogsmeade weekends and over holidays. It wasn't likely that it would last very long, but they at least could have tried it.   
  
When they had first started dating she thought that they were a perfect match, but now she realized that the only similarity they had was the fact that the were both Muggle-borns. He was a self-absorbed, plain-looking moron who could only make a living by being some goblin's lackey.   
  
She, on the other hand was....well....ten times better in every way. She was such a good person that she didn't even need to list her good qualities because they were as common knowledge as the color of the sky.   
  
No, what she needed to do was review her History of Magic notes. Even though she didn't need to do well on that exam, she wanted to at least try for an E in case she decided to switch career paths.   
  
She'd only have to peruse them for an hour or so, but in order to do so she needed to find her notes, which were...with Eddie.  
  
She groaned. She really didn't want to have to face him until after her OWLS, but she didn't want to fail one of them either.  
  
  
  
As she'd suspected, Eddie was in the Great Hall, having his Hufflepuff mates quiz him on the five key factors one has to remember when handling a flobberworm.  
  
Lily walked up to the group, and without waiting for any sign of acknowledgment, interrupted their conversation.   
  
"Eddie, I need my Binns notes back." Her brusque tone earned several looks from the Hufflepuffs.  
  
"But you gave them to me," he protested.  
  
"I did not," she insisted. "I let you borrow them."  
  
"C'mon Lily, I need those more than you do. You're just taking your OWLs. I'm taking my NEWTs, and they're loads more difficult than OWLs. Plus, I'll have to know all about goblin  
  
rebellions at Gringotts."  
  
"Well you should have thought about that before you decided to sleep through an entire year of History of Magic." A few of his friends snickered at the memory. "Now give me my notes."  
  
"You're being completely unreasonable, you know." Eddie was sounding suspiciously more and more like her most self-important cousin. Stupid bastard.  
  
"You've always been completely stupid, you know." Lily ignored the catcalls his friends issued and tried to convince herself that it was a good comeback. It wasn't.  
  
"Can I please just keep them until supper?" he asked.  
  
"No."  
  
"Well I can't find it so–"  
  
"I don't have time for this!" she cut him off. Taking even herself by surprise, she picked up his bag and pulled her notes from it.  
  
Purposefully avoiding looking at anyone in the hall, she, again, stormed back up towards Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"And then she just stomped away?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm telling you, it was bizarre." James had just finished telling his friends about the incident he had had in the library earlier. The four of them were gathered around their usual table in the common room, surrounded by the books they had abandoned studying. Or rather, the books Peter and Remus had abandoned, since James and Sirius hadn't been studying anyway.   
  
They had teased James about the strand of red hair that Sirius spotted on his clothes until he explained what had happened. He didn't tell them everything though, like how nice she smelled and how elated he'd felt when she'd sat down near him.   
  
"Anyway, Wormtail, do you have my potions notes from last month?"  
  
"W-well, no...you see...I had to...well I didn't have to...but Linda Richards asked if she could borrow them for a bit...and I said it was okay...I can ask her for them back if you want, James?"  
  
James waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, that's fine." He smiled to mask his disappointment. He'd wanted another excuse to talk to Evans. " I don't really need them anyway."  
  
  
  
"Merlin, Lily, what's happened?"  
  
Not for the first time that day, Lily Evans was hysterical. She was sitting on the bathroom floor, staring–well, not staring exactly because she kept having to blink back tears–into an empty cupboard.   
  
Marjorie Stanton, Lily's friend and dormmate of five years, was unnerved at seeing her friend so upset. "This isn't over Eddie, is it?" she asked hesitantly.  
  
"No!" Lily pounded the beige-tiled floor with her fist. "Why does everyone have to keep bringing him up? I don't have time!"  
  
"Time for what?" Majorie asked, confused.  
  
"Time to deal with him. Time for studying. Time until I have to take my OWLs."  
  
"Lily, you have plenty of time until then–"  
  
"Three days!" she cried, doing a remarkably good impression of a heroin addict on some Muggle drama Marjorie had seen once while visiting Lily.  
  
"Yes, Lily, three days until two exams. Four until two more. And nearly two weeks until the last ones." This seemed to calm Lily a little bit.  
  
"That's not all." she sniffled.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Whoever was supposed to didn't go to Madame Pomfrey to restock our cupboard."  
  
"Ahhh," said Marjorie in understanding. "Well I can fix that. What do you want me to get?"  
  
"Tampax," she whimpered, than, as an afterthought, added, "please."   
  
"No problem. Do you want anything to eat? Chocolate perhaps?"  
  
"I don't have time to eat," she moaned, burying her face in her hands.  
  
"Alright then, I'll be back in a bit." Marjorie closed the door softly, hoping to God someone could get her some chocolate.   
  
  
  
  
  
On her way back to the hospital wing, Marjorie noticed Remus and Peter engrossed in what looked like a Charms book. Remembering her promise to Lily, and that Remus nearly always had chocolate in his grasp, she decided to ask him for some.   
  
"Ahem," she cleared her throat.  
  
"Hullo, Marjorie," Remus said, dropping his quill into an inkwell.   
  
"Not a bad time is it?"  
  
"No, no. We've been interrupted six or so times since we sat down. Once more can't hurt."  
  
Marjorie didn't know how to interpret his comment, so she simply ignored it. "Um, yes well I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor..."  
  
"Which is?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.  
  
"You wouldn't have any chocolate, would you?"  
  
"Er...well..."  
  
"It's not for me," she cut in hastily, thinking for a minute that she wasn't exactly Remus' favorite person.  
  
"Is it for Evans?" Peter piped in his unusually high voice.   
  
"Actually yeah, how'd you know?"  
  
"James said she'd gone positively barmy over exams," Remus explained.   
  
"Where is he anyway?" Peter asked Remus.  
  
"Detention with Sirius. You know that," replied Remus. Turning back to the blonde girl, he explained, "James came over here a while ago and was really shaken up. He'd been in the library and Lily came over and started stressing over OWLs."  
  
"Crying on his shoulder, she was," added Peter. "Not that he–OW!" Remus had apparently kicked him under the table.  
  
"So he actually fancies her? Linda told me, but you know how she is."  
  
"He fancies her something awful, alright," continued Peter. "Stop that!" he snapped after another well-aimed kick, courtesy of Remus.   
  
"He told you?" the girl inquired.  
  
"Sirius did."  
  
"He told Black?"  
  
"He doesn't need to," answered Remus, who apparently didn't think his comment required an explination.  
  
"Right...how about that chocolate, Remus?"  
  
"I'm afraid I haven't been to Honeydukes for a while, so I don't have any. But if you want, you can just go to the kitchens and get some."  
  
"You mean you can actually visit the kitchens?"  
  
"Yeah, but actually a house elf just walked in the common room, so you can ask it for some."  
  
"I don't know what it thinks it's doing," said Peter. "Aren't they supposed to keep out of sight?"  
  
"Someone probably made a mess, or else it's just a really bad elf."  
  
"Thanks, boys. I'm going to go see if I can catch that elf."  
  
"'Bye," the boys said in unison.  
  
"Happy studying," she teased before running after the house elf who had just disappeared behind the door to the girls' dormitories.   
  
Peter frowned at the parchment full of complicated notes in front of him. "I'm never going to get this," he groaned.   
  
  
  
Sirius Black was scrubbing bedpans in the hospital wing with more than his usual amount of vigor. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he half-hoped that Dumbledore would ask to keep him here over the summer, since he was such an excellent cleaner. He had never looked forward to returning to his parents' house over the summer, but this year he absolutely dreaded it.   
  
This summer would be his brother's first summer holiday and, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Black would be truthfully informed of their eldest's doings at Hogwarts. Perhaps truthfully wasn't the right word since Regulus would undoubtedly exaggerate, accusing him of everything from being in the company of Muggle-lovers to dueling with sons of proper, pure-blood families.  
  
Sirius knew, of course, that he could spend a great deal of his time with the Potters, but he was always a little wary of overstaying his welcome. James' parents would most likely want to have some time alone with their child before welcoming any of his friends into the house.   
  
If he could just convince the headmaster to let him stay for two weeks after term then he could go directly to James' house and avoid his family all together.   
  
But then again, Hogwarts wasn't exactly as appealing as it normally was, what with OWLs on the horizon and everyone around him going crazy.   
  
Remus and Peter were apparently trying to break the record for most time spent with a Transfiguration book; James was pretending not to be completely infatuated with Lily Evans who apparently was three fits away from the crazy ward at St. Mungo's.  
  
Sirius' thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of James' face in the mirror he brought along to every detention.   
  
"Sirius?" called James' face.  
  
"I'm here," he said, aligning the mirror with his face.   
  
"I thought for a minute that you'd left this in the dorm."  
  
"Nah, I'd forget to go to detention before I forgot to bring this." The two friends grinned at each other. "What d'you reckon we should do when we've finished this?"  
  
"Depends. What time is it?"   
  
Sirius looked at his watch. "Quarter to six," he replied.  
  
"Supper sounds good then."  
  
"D'you reckon we should study, you know, for OWLs."  
  
James made a face. "Nah, I tried that, remember? I sat in the library for an hour, bored myself nearly to death with facts about plants and all I got was a wet shoulder. Besides we've got two days to study if we really want to."  
  
Sirius agreed and the two continued their work.  
  
"So what'd you really do to Evans to make her cry?" Sirius broke the silence.   
  
"Nothing. If anything it was you who set her off."  
  
"Come off it, what could I have done? I was in the kitchens, bribing that house elf to fill Linda Richards' water jug with chicken eyes. I transfigured them from gobstones, so some of them still stink if you touch them," Sirius laughed.  
  
James, however, did not share his mirth. "Why'd you do that for?" he asked. Linda Richards shared a dorm with Evans and eyeballs within ten feet of her bed probably wouldn't sit well with her. He didn't want to make Evans more upset than she already was.  
  
"She'd been goggling me for two weeks. This morning she tried to chat me up at breakfast. It got a bit annoying."  
  
"You passed up a perfectly good opportunity to hex someone, mate."   
  
"Eh, there'll be others"  
  
  
  
  
  
"You know, lately I've been thinking that my sister planned her wedding in the middle of May just to spite me?"  
  
"What d'you mean?" Marjorie said, her voice slightly muffled by the large quantity of chocolate that filled her mouth.   
  
The two friends were taking advantage of the empty common room while the rest of the school was in the Great Hall, eating their evening meal.   
  
"I mean that she picked the absolute worst time for me to have to leave school. I missed nearly all the review for the OWLs."  
  
"Poor dear, I'm sure it was just torture going to parties and trying on dresses while all your peers were sitting in hot classrooms, being bored nearly to death."  
  
Lily nodded her head, ignoring the sarcasm. "It was. Do you have any idea how horrible my sister's friends are? I think I'll have permanent hearing damage from hearing those high-pitched voices blather on non-stop. 'Oh, Lily, doesn't your sister look absolutely stunning?'" Lily mimicked, with a sickening, plastered-on smile.  
  
"'Aren't you just so impressed how well they hid her horse-face behind two stone of make-up?'" Immediately after saying this, Marjorie covered her mouth with her face, looking horrified.  
  
"Oh, God, Lily. That was so mean. I'm so sorry," she apologized.  
  
Lily, however didn't seem bothered in the slightest. "It's true," she shrugged. "Plus, I think one of her friends did actually say that." She smiled and the two girls fell into a fit of giggles, the occasional impression of a member of the wedding party interrupting it.  
  
"Where'd you get all this chocolate from, anyway?" Lily asked once they had calmed down somewhat.   
  
  
  
"I asked a house elf for it. I didn't think it'd give us this much, not that I'm complaining, of course."  
  
"That's funny because a house elf came up to our dorm a little bit after you'd left. I'd never seen one before today."  
  
"Neither had I. We must've seen the same one, because the one I saw was just coming down the staircase when I found him. What was he doing in our dorm, anyway?"  
  
"I couldn't tell you. I was still in the bathroom when he came in. To be honest, I didn't pay him that much attention. He was probably dusting the dressers or something."  
  
"Yeah," Marjorie agreed. "You know, Potter missed you while you were gone," she teased.   
  
Lily made a face. "I'm sure. How could you tell? Was he not as enthusiastic about hexing people or something?"  
  
"Come off it. He really likes you, you know."  
  
Lily was not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken. She had enough to worry about, what with her future being decided in a matter of days, and she really didn't have the time or the heart to deal with boys. "I'm sure he–"  
  
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" An obviously feminine screamed interrupted the conversation.  
  
"Reckon we should go check on that?"  
  
"It sounded a bit like Linda."  
  
"Alright, let's go then."  
  
The two girls quickly climbed the staircase that led to their dorms, curious as to what had incited a scream from one of the girls.   
  
They decided to look in the fifth year girls' dorm first, since the scream had sounded suspiciously like their dormmate.   
  
Upon entering the dorm, nothing seemed amiss until they looked at Linda's face. It was conveying a look of utmost revulsion.   
  
"Linda, what happened?" asked Lily, taking steps towards her. She wished she had stayed where she originally way. With every step, she became increasingly aware of a foul smell that seemed to be emitting from Linda's bedside table.   
  
Marjorie's disgusted "Urgh" let Lily know that she was not the only one who could smell it. "Linda, I don't know what you had for dinner, but I suggest you only eat it when you're guaranteed solitude afterwards. It smells worse than gobstones in here."  
  
"Shut up," Linda snapped. "I didn't make this smell. It's coming from my water jug."  
  
"Er..." Lily and Marjorie looked at each other. Perhaps Lily wasn't the only one who'd cracked today.  
  
"Just look," Linda insisted, thrust the aforementioned container in Marjorie's hands.  
  
"I think I'm going to be sick," Lily moaned as she looked inside and saw fifty or so eyeballs in the place of water.  
  
Marjorie, not anxious to hold the offensive jug for any longer than necessary, walked over to one of the windows that looked out onto the Quidditch pitch. Opening it, she asked Linda, "You don't mind do you?"  
  
Realizing what she intended to do, simply shook her head. Whether it meant that she didn't mind or she didn't want Marjorie to go through with her plan didn't matter for a moment later Marjorie dropped the jug and its contents out of the tower window.   
  
The other two girls rushed to the window to watch the fall.   
  
"Yay," Lily cheered as it crashed into the ground, steps away from where Eddie and his friends were persuading a fifth year Ravenclaw to lend them her History of Magic notes. Marjorie laughed.   
  
"You could have just dumped the eyeballs out the window," Linda mournfully said as she stared down at the broken shards of her water jug.  
  
Marjorie looked at her oddly. "You were going to drink out of that thing after this?"  
  
Linda shrugged. "I'm going to go study," she muttered before shuffling her feet out of the room.   
  
"Well that was weird," Lily stated plainly.  
  
"Just a bit. Want to get a few minutes of studying in before we get distracted by something else?"  
  
"Might as well," said Lily, half-heartedly, "seeing as how I've done almost none today."  
  
"Ah, don't worry about it, Lily. You've still got two days."  
  
"Two days?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes. "Two days?"  
  
  
  
  
  
That's it. There won't be any chapters added to this or anything. Just a nice, one shot about something very traumatic that none of the other writers on ff.net seem to have touched. I could be wrong, but it doesn't really matter. Sorry if some things are crazy with the formatting. I'm no computer genius.  
  
I'm quite proud of this one, so be a dear and review. 


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